If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Bowlers give Kohli Selection Headache ahead of Final

The final of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy between India and Pakistan will take place at the Oval in London, which probably could be called a batsman’s paradise.

The very first match of the tournament was played here and Bangladesh scored a decent 306, but England chased that down in the 48th over with 8 wickets to spare.

India made 321, but Sri Lanka finished off the target in the 49th over with 7 wickets to spare. Of course that's not to say there haven't been batting collapses.

South Africa made 299 and Lanka crashed to 203. South Africa then crashed to 191 with India and Bangladesh could muster up only 182 with Australia.

What this means is that if a batsman gets in the Oval, he stays in even as bowlers desperately need early breakthroughs to stay relevant throughout the innings.

Pakistani fast bowlers Hasan Ali and Junaid Khan will desperately seek early wickets with India—otherwise India will simply run away with the match.

Pakistani batting and spin bowling has not been that impressive and that means the Pakistani fast bowlers are the best chance the team has in going past India.

However they are at a bit of a disadvantage. They haven't played a single match in CT 2017 at the Oval as all their matches were in Birmingham and Cardiff.

That's where the Indian fast bowlers might fare much better. We got absolutely belted in the match with Sri Lanka.

Hardik Pandya went at 7.3 runs an over while Umesh Yadav went at 6.9.

However in that match both Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah held their grounds giving 54 and 52 runs in their 10 overs respectively.

With South Africa both were a revelation on the same ground as Bhuvi took 2-23. Bumrah took 2-28 and was declared the man of the match.

Both continued to shine in the semis as Bhuvi took 2-53 and Bumrah 2-39.

Bumrah has emerged as our strike bowler in this tournament ably supported by Bhuvi.

Both of them have a career economy rate below 5 which is quite rare in today’s high scoring slam bam cricket.

Bumrah also has a good 26 wickets in just 15 ODIs and that's a great beginning.

The weak link continues to be Pandya and he went for a whopping 8.5 runs per over in his brief spell in the semis.

The spinners have also been missing in action in this tournament at the Oval and the only exception was Imran Tahir, who took 4 wickets for South Africa in the match against Sri Lanka.

Thanks to that the Lankans collapsed to 203 all out in just 41.3 overs. So the team management may also be tempted to go in for four fast bowlers and just one spinner thanks to Kedar Jadhav’s theatrics in the semis.